LAHORE, 26 July 2004 — Police and intelligence agents raided a suspected terrorist hide-out in eastern Pakistan yesterday, arresting at least 12 people after a prolonged gunbattle, officials said.
At least four of those arrested in the raid in Gujrat were foreigners, said Saadatullah Khan, the chief of police for Punjab province, where Gujrat is located.
Security forces returned fire after they were attacked from inside the home and the standoff lasted about six hours, Khan said.
It was not clear what the suspects were accused of doing, or what group they belonged to.
“This will come to the surface once our investigations are completed,” Khan told The Associated Press. He had no details on where the foreigners were from.
Police sources, however, said some of those arrested were allegedly involved in attack on the Karachi corps commander on June 10.
Two AK-47 rifles, two computers, computer diskettes, and a “large amount” of foreign currency was found at the home, said Raja Munawar, the chief of police in Gujrat. He said the suspects belonged to a “religious terrorist group” without specifying any organization by name.
Raja Munawar said five men, three women and five children were detained. “One of the children is an infant,” he added.
An official at the Interior Ministry in the capital Islamabad confirmed the arrests, saying one of the suspects was wounded in the shootout.
Officials were interrogating the suspects to determine their links with any terrorist group but none of them appeared to be senior figures, said Abdul Rauf Chaudhry, a spokesman for the ministry.
An intelligence officer in Lahore, speaking on condition of anonymity, said an Uzbek woman was among the suspects arrested in the raid.
He said another terror suspect, who was already in custody, accompanied intelligence agents, indicating he led the security forces to the house. That man was not identified.
The militants have been living in the house with their families for the last one and a half months. A police source said three of the suspects rented the house from Ijaz Warraich, an employee of the Muslim Commercial Bank, Mirpur branch.
Pakistan is an ally of the United States in the campaign against terrorism. It has handed over more than 500 Al-Qaeda suspects to the Americans since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Islamabad has vowed to rid the country of foreign militants, many of whom have either slipped into big cities or are hiding in the rugged tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
